I am not a big basketball fan and while I understand the basic premise of getting the ball through the hoop, I can be cartoonishly girly when it comes to what happens when someone fouls or when people cheer for seemingly no reason.  "What happened?  Wait, is that good or bad?” But you don’t need a deep knowledge of the game to know the gossip, especially when it comes to Kobe Bryant’s past problems with mistresses.  His wife has filed for divorce because it could be a habit he can’t kick.

Over the holiday weekend, you might have noticed this article on kiteboarding in the Wall Street Journal. The pursuit of wind power atop a surfing speed machine has attracted the amour of "adventure capitalists" like Richard Branson, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Philip Rosedale, Alexander von Furstenberg, Bill Tai, and our own Ari Horowitz. As a result of this burgeoning luxury niche that continues to thrive in the face of general economic blues, we're pleased to highlight a small nugget from the WSJ piece: the upcoming launch of our sibling site focused on kiting, KiteEnthusiast.com.

I feel sorry for Koman Coulibaly. The World Cup referee might have a spot of trouble getting a U.S. visa to visit Disney World after screwing the Americans out of a victory against Slovenia in South Africa today, putting their chances of advancing out of the first round in jeopardy. The response on the internet has been swift and severe. Within seconds of his gobsmackingly shitty call to disallow a completely valid goal by the Yanks, the Malian official's Wikipedia page was vandalized, his photo was distributed on wanted posters, and "This Guy Sucks" was upvoted to the number one spot on Reddit. I would have loved to see the Americans win, but maybe we should thank Coulibaly. Today America became a real soccer nation, joining the ranks of soccer-mad states like Germany and England as worthy teams that have been undone by either incompetent or vindictive World Cup referees. We've finally arrived.

I never much followed sports. Whether the Rangers beat the Knicks or the Yankees defeated the Celtics was of little importance to me, except that the games often interfered with my business. Yesterday's NBA finals left local pubs and sports bars sated and clubs empty—at least early in the evening. While many ignore all the hoopla, big games like these keep patrons away from nightclubs for many hours, and often altogether. The games are a great excuse for house parties and visits to the local watering hole. Patrons that go to the clubs after the game, when the interviews and the replays are finally over, are often close to their saturation point on local swill or deli beers. This week’s subway series will have a smaller but similar effect. Come late September and October, if the Yankees—and maybe even the Mets—are in contention, every game becomes a big one, and the bottom line is impacted. Club doorman yawn and check their Rolex, knowing they will be slammed about an hour after the all important clashes.

I’m in Patong, Thailand, and there’s a revolution afoot, so I decide to go bet on some Muay Thai fights. The Bangla Muay Thai Stadium in Patong is as close to Thunderdome as you'll find outside a movie set or Burning Man. It's essentially a three-storied arena packed with foreign and local fans jawing and drinking in a hot, sweaty box, filled with the droning live music of Muay Thai. The combination of Javanese clarinet, drums, a gong and chime bells plus the heat and the overwhelming scent of Tiger Balm get you feeling frisky and in the betting mood.

Kobe Bryant and his fellow Lakers may be well on their way to winning another championship, but over on the West Coast the internet is abuzz over Bryant but for an entirely different reason. This past Sunday the sports icon graced the cover of the L.A. Times' Magazine looking quite unlike you've ever seen him. Clad in various all-white ensembles, the fashion choices—which included a scarf wrapped turban-meets-tooth ache style in one particular shot—were no doubt all questionable. But, a far greater offense was the unrelenting photoshopping released on the images.

Forget plus size models. Female athletes, according to a story today in the New York Times, are pushing the boundaries of what the public perceives as 'classic beauty.' Guy Trebay pegs his argument on a long roster of muscular, yet cosmetic endorsement-ready sports stars--from Maria Sharapova and Mia Hamm to the Williams sisters. But a new face, that of women's basketball player Brittney Griner, is apparently giving the cause even more steam. "She is part of a slowly unfolding civilized response in the country to the slightly androgynous female," a scholar tells the paper. "I can imagine a market for that," Paul Rowland--a revered scout at the modeling agency, Women--adds of his potentially signing a gender-bending, yet conventionally "good-looking" female athlete such as Griner.

On Sunday, Katie Spotz, 22, became the youngest person to row an ocean solo. In just over 70 days, Spotz rowed across the Atlantic, traveling from Dakar, Senegal on Africa's west coast to Georgetown, Guyana in South America.

Winter Olympics 2010 have come to a close, and as inspirational sports movies have forever conditioned us to believe, it was a “learning experience.” A small sampling of the knowledge gained: Fourteen condoms per athlete just don’t cut it, Canada’s hockey heroines know how to party (and offend while doing so), and apparently, Shaun White is the Cuban cigar of extreme sports –whatever that means.

What if you could help animals just by exposing your privates? In a story that appears to be plucked from the pages of The Onion, the masturbating orangutans who run Playgirl have proposed to team up with Michael Vick and PETA to create a Captain Planet-esque dream team of DNW. In exchange for a nude photo shoot, the '70s style skin mag has proposed to donate $1 million to PETA, which the other '70s style skin mag animal rights organization would then in turn spend on more naked photo shoots. For the animals.